ExArkie

Perhaps 16 days includes embarkation day when the spa probably won’t be available and disembarkation day when it definitely won’t? That would leave 14 days of access.

Ours, based on the same general idea several years ago, was the last leg of the QE World Cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Southampton, returning on QM2 several weeks later (with the intervening time in Ireland, if that matters).

Differentiating between high tea and afternoon tea: https://teatimemagazine.com/high-tea-vs-afternoon-tea/

My first impression is that this is the Yokohama Bay Bridge, having crossed under it exactly once in my life.

We had a B2B last December (5-day Christmas Market, followed by 7-day TA) with the changeover in Southampton. This is the same process we followed, where we did not leave the ship. We moved from PG on the short leg to QG on the TA, thanks to an excessively generous upgrade from Cunard to the Balmoral Suite (Q1). The person scanning the cards for leaving the ship and returning…all at the same time..was a bit confused, but she finally got it. We sat in the Carinthia Lounge for an hour or so while the changeover was happening, having checked with the steward as to what the expected timing would be (the butler on the TA said the previous occupants had self-disembarked, which shaved several minutes off the process), then proceeded to the new cabin before boarding started for those embarking on the TA. The cabin was ready and our luggage was waiting in the closet.

I will disagree with this part. My experience has been that there are only a handful of TAs that offer better service than the call center.

Pretty much everything I encounter is a lot more complex than anticipated. Thanks for the details.

What is the average length of time for each dinner that the restaurant manager uses to book reservations? If they are assuming all diners will want to take less than an hour and book tables accordingly, one table taking an hour and ten minutes throws everything off and, as you suggest, someone misses getting a table. If they are assuming an average of two hours and a number of people take an hour or less, then a few people taking three hours would not negate their assumption of an average time interval. In the former situation, someone could miss out. In the latter, most likely not. By the same logic, if I thought I might not enjoy the evening show but went anyway just to see, does that mean I am denying someone who wanted to see it the opportunity to do so?

My wife got the attention of a food-sniffing dog at the international bag claim in ATL. Took a while to figure out the dog was smelling the bacon roll she had stuck in her pocket (wrapped in a napkin) and eaten in the car on the way to our departure airport about 8 or 9 hours earlier.

Small digression: Many eons ago, I was the coordinator for a statewide program to assess the risk of asbestos in schools, particularly in sprayed ceiling surfaces. The laboratory where I used their polarized light microscope to analyze samples also included a person using a regular microscope to count bug parts in corn chips and tortilla chips from a local manufacturer to ensure they were under the maximum limit. Tends to put one off one’s lunch to see the various pieces of (example) fly legs in the chip samples. More related to the topic: A few years ago, I was setting up instrumentation to detect low levels of radioactivity in a niche-market production process. The local technical representative brought in the banana from his lunch, which we put into the detector. With a small tweak to the analysis time, we got a “high radiation” alarm from his banana. An indication of how very low the levels were that we were trying to detect.

That appears to be one factor in some cases, but if both are before final payment (as fourmile.ranch indicated), I assume it is the difference in fare designation as discussed further upthread.

Agree about not rushing dinner - my vacation, my money to pay for the specialty restaurant, my decision as to how long I take. Generally, I like 6 to 6:30 seating times for exactly the same scenario that you list, figuring it's going to be after 7 by the time we actually eat anything. We're not much on any of the shows, so it has to be something different for us to adjust our dinner time to get there.

Maybe to keep the unwashed masses from soiling their passports?? I was not aware of a new design - mine has an expiration date of 2025, so it’s been a while. I found the following after a short search: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/passport-help/next-generation-passport.html Turns out plastic pages are more durable.

I was happy with their service LAX to the port a few years back.

Wait! You mean someone actually had a GAIN on Carnival stock??!! I reread the original post. Evidently, I missed the "sell at a profit" statement and just assumed that the OP was in the same boat as the majority having stock that lost value. My error.

Depending on the ship (older NCL and Celebrity ships, all Cunard ships - don't know about MSC, as I have not been on them), there isn't a geographically isolated area that includes both the cabins and the suite amenity areas all together. It is still necessary to traverse the ship's corridors to get from your stateroom to the suite-only areas.

There is another thread that discusses the credit, starting on the day it was announced. Several people report getting it applied to existing bookings, but not everyone (I love consistency). I attempted to get it added to a 2025 transpacific booked well before the offer was announced. I called twice (don't get the answer you want, hang up and try again) and was told both times that our TA had to make the call to request it, even though others reported that not to be the case. She did and was told that HAL was applying the credit (1) to cruises booked within 30 days of the offer being announced and (2) to persons who linked their Mariner number and AARP number on the first day of the offer. The time limit did not apply in my situation, but some people on the other thread reported having it applied to cruises booked well before the 30-day period. I tried an e-mail and got the reply that it was good only on new bookings. At that point, I decided that since our sailing is still offered at the same price, still with the Early Booking Bonus HIA, and the cabin next door to the one we had chosen was available, it was easier to cancel the existing booking and rebook the same sailing if I wanted the AARP OBC. Side note relevant to the original point of this thread: The AARP credit can definitely be applied to 2025 sailings. It was automatic. It sounds to me like HAL was unprepared to answer the question about existing bookings during the first several days/week of the offer and allowed quite a bit of variation in how it was or was not applied. Seems to be more consistent now that it is for new bookings only. However, the investment of a phone call might bring you luck. Go for it. Let us know if it works. (Just curious, I spent way more time on this than the OBC was worth.)

Did you find T&C from Cunard? I searched their site and didn't find any explanation of the restrictions or limitations of FCD. I did find a site, updated this week, that discusses FCD for various lines: https://www.travelmarketreport.com/Cruise/articles/Onboard-Future-Cruise-Booking-Policies-by-Cruise-Line Their information on Cunard says: "Other related rules: Future Cruise deposits expire four years from date of issue and are fully refundable. Not combinable with custom group quotes, Cruise Night, Net/Net Fares, Flash, Travel Advisor, Interline, Incentive, Negotiated, Friends & Family, Lowest/Value Fares, Short Sales promotions with promo RG*, Sailing Soon savings, and other fares offered inside final payment." No idea what "promo RG" means, there was no footnote for the asterisk.

According to the terms, the shareholder must own Carnival stock at the time of sailing, although no cruise line has ever checked on ours to verify that we do still own stock. Of course, if you sell your current 100 shares and buy back another 100 shares before sailing, that would meet the terms. However, looking at the stock’s performance and expectation charts, buyback probably wouldn’t happen before November. (Not to mention the issue with wash sale rules on income tax)

Lately, I have been coming back to this thread only after the photos have been identified. This time, I may have the timing right for once. This is, unless I am badly mistaken, taken from the Piazzale Roma in Venice. I believe that the building houses the local tourist information office, and the People Mover drops you off in it. You come out (or go in) at the far end of the building under the flat awning.

It is also worth pointing out that on Queen Mary 2, the spaces set aside for Grills passengers are not all in the same part of the ship. The restaurants and lounge (comparable to the Neptune Lounge on HAL) are at the rear of deck 7, aft of the buffet restaurant, and the Grills deck is a small area aft on deck 11. The "ship-within-a-ship" seems to be even less relevant there than on the Vista class ships where the restaurants, lounge, and deck space are actually all together. Back to the original post, thank you @Ready2go11 for your mini-review. I think your observations on Cunard are pretty accurate (ten sailings with them, nine of which were transatlantic) and it gives me a good idea of what to expect on HAL for our booked transpacific. Our one previous HAL trip was very disappointing in terms of food quality and service, so we are hoping (expecting) vast improvements, based on these boards.

I'll be having my usual (daily) 5:30 PM "I feel completely foolish" glass of wine this afternoon, if you'd care to join me. Seemed it was occurring with me at much more frequent intervals, so why not embrace the concept?

As did my version. I was given a “practice question” to be answered using the keyboard, and was told to do so in the instructions. This is where I discovered it was necessary to continue on the laptop. A minor inconvenience at worst…but one more thing to be irritated at iOS over. (Disclosure: I learned computer programming decades ago using hexadecimal machine coding. The commercial operating systems from both Apple and Microsoft both have irritations.)

To be fair, the only "glitch" I encountered was that the iPad won't let me have a keyboard if it doesn't want to give me one.

From my experience, Cunard does still have formal nights (a.k.a., “Gala Nights”), although their frequency and number have decreased over the years. I am also told that the UK-based lines P&O and Saga both still have formal nights, but I have sailed on neither. We were on Seabourn several years ago and there was no tie required for any night. There appears to be some degree of increased pressure from the cruising public for Cunard to relax their dress code even more than has already occurred. A dozen years ago, our transatlantic had three formal nights (dinner jacket, tux, or dark suit and tie), two informal nights (jacket and no tie), and two semi formal nights (jacket and tie). Last year, there were two Gala Nights (same as previous formal nights) and five Smart Attire nights (dress shirt, no jacket required). So, formality appears to be generally on the way out even there.